Saturday, April 19, 2008

Sunday April 20th, it's not only Adolf Hitler's... also since 1908, it's been the late great Lionel Hampton's birthday... (he was a perhaps slightly less well known 1930's & 1940's era celeb.)

Not being the biggest fan of Hitler, a man who's recorded works are many but overall somewhat lacking in entertainment value, I guess I'll talk up Mr. Hampton the musician instead...

As a Los Angeles based drummer, Lionel Hampton had a cameo in the 1934 Bing Crosby film Pennies From Heaven alongside trumpeter Louis Armstrong.[citatation]. Hampton took immediately to Armstrong, driving him around, and the two worked up routines in their act where they marched off the bandstand with their instruments, and ended Hampton with sliding on his belly.

"Well, Louis was my idol. I met him, we were talking, then he said, 'Oh, I got to call a car so I can go to the city and go to work.' And I said, 'You don't need a car, you can use my car.' So I took him where he was going. yeah, we hit it off."

"Louis used to sing 'Rockin' Chair Got Me' and I'd be the old man in the rocking chair. 'Old rockin' chair's got you, father, cane by your side,' he'd sing to me, and I'd have on a duster coat, a false beard, an old straw hat and a cane-my props. Oh, boy! I thought I was something, doing that with Louis Armstrong!"

"Louis and I did an act on 'Hold That Tiger.' I'd go into the audience hollering through my snare drum: 'Oh! (Hold that tiger!), Oh! (Hold that tiger!).' And on the last one, when Louis hit that high C or F-which in those days, every trumpet player would try to hit, but Louis would hit it and hold it-I'd run from the audience and slide on my belly, with the snare drum on, across the dance floor, and hit the cymbal I'd set up with my bass drum on the floor. I'd hit my cymbal to cut off Louis' high note, and the band would cut off, too, and we never missed, we'd always hit it right on time. People got a big kick out of that. Yeah, Louis and I were tight."

It would not be as a drummer though that he would gain his fame, but as a vibraphonist...

Lionel Hampton played vibraphone publicly for the 1st time in a gig backing up Louis Armstrong, while a member of the Stan Hite orchestra, who'd all been hired in LA as a backing group by the famous New Orleans jazz man.

Armstrong was reputably Hampton's musical inspiration, but another man played a very important role, his next boss and musical collaborator...

After a stint attempting to lead his own group, Lionel eventually joined forces with famed clarinetist Benny Goodman. Hampton often credited Goodman with leading a wave of integration, giving breaks to "colored" musicians like Hamp in the days of deep seeded racist segregation.

Hampton was a dynamite performer as a drummer, also a respected pianist who could boogie woogie with the best of 'em, and also an occasional vocalist...

Here's Lionel Hampton on an old Victor disc in a rare spot of singing & of course playing his vibraphone in the Benny Goodman Quartet, a 1937 era combo ...

Hampton soon became very popular, not only as a member of Benny Goodman's band in the later 1930's, but beginning in 1940 and through the early 1950s , as a notable "big band" leader on his own. Hamp's orchestra's third recording in 1942 produced the classic version of "Flying Home", featuring a solo by Illinois Jacquet that helped pave the way for the music that eventually became popularly known as Rhythm & Blues.

While the big band years faded, Hampton's talents remained strong and he continued to record in smaller combos notably many sessions for Joel Dorn's Verve label, including those with Oscar Peterson, and a notable team up with Stan Getz in 1955.

Here's their intensely virtuosotic version of Jumpin at The Woodside captured at a scorching hot summer session taped in LA from the classic LP Hamp & Getz.

Unlike the stereotypes you might have of many Jazz musicians, Hampton eschewed the norms, including bypassing the cigar chomping conventional management. He controlled more of his money by using his wife Gladys as his booking agent, forming the Glad-Hamp organization, which she ran until her death in 1971. Gladys had actually started off as a club dancer, and after catching each other's attentions with their talents, she bought Hamp his first set of vibes back in the LA days in the latter 1930's.

He also served as Vice-Chairman of the New York Republican County Committee for some years, and was very interested in fundraising for Israel. After his death the Harlem Republican club renamed itself The Lionel Hampton Republican Club. Before his death the University of Idaho had named their annual Jazz Festival after him, as well as the school's jazz program.

Friday, I meant to get a happy birthday post up to honor the life of the late great Clarence Gatemouth Brown. I was a bit distracted by the usual whatnot, so I hope to combine this announcement...Since this weekend is also the anniversary of Earth Day, here's a track that combines both Gate's birthday, and his interest in ecology. Here's "Man and his Environment" from a mid 1970's release "Gate's On The Heat", that aimed a song at outgoing prez Nixon, and presciently predates our current Republican President's vague recognition of global warming.

How ironic that his final days as an 81 year old man suffering from cancer were spent evacuating his Slidell Louisiana home, and dealing with the effects of the catastrophic consequences of Hurricane Katrina, and the lame government response to the aftermath.

Clarence Gatemouth Brown was born in Orange Texas on April 18th 1924, and he began playing music professionally in the post war 1940's period. After winning over the crowd's at Houston's Peacock club, he also recorded originally for The Peacock label. His "Oakie Dokie Blues" becoming one of the all time electric guitar showcases in the genre. He eventually ended up in Nashville heading up the houseband for 26 episodes of the Beat TV show in the early 60's.

After decades of juke joints and obscurity, ups & downs, and even a stint as a deputy sheriff, in the 1980's his southern blues stylings and immense musical talents were finally better recognized and he won a blues Grammy for his Rounder album 'Alright Again!'.

Gatemouth was increasingly sought out on the festival circuit, and played up to 300 dates a year. He was even recognized by the US State Dept as an official American ambassador of music, and had toured worldwide, including war torn and politically unstable places like East Africa, Central America and parts of the former Soviet Union. He released "Timeless", his last album of a 60 year career, shortly before he died in a stressful period of September 2005 right after moving out of his flooded home during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

One of the unique aspects of Clarence Gatemouth Brown's popularity were his appearances on Hee Haw with pal Roy Clark. Here's a tune from a record they did together in the late 1970's...

From Makin' Music released on MCA in the fall of 1979, despite a 90's reissue, the record is now quite rare, with a recent perusal of Amazon showing the cheapest used copy available for $173...yikes!

Below is a list of some of the many recordings still available at reasonable prices via either the usual online CD dispensaries, or for as downloads through iTunes, Amazon, eMusic and other digital music stores that Clarence Gatemouth Brown's music is featured on...

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

About 8 satellite trucks greeted me as i emerged out of the transit tunnels lasterday afternoon...

A stage was being built so that Tibetan freedom and human rights protestors could rally against the symbolic torch run being conducted here in San Francisco today...

We had Richard Gere & Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the hizzo, calling for a boycott of the Olympics, or at least the opening ceremonies...

The torchm supposedly a symbol of peace, now a controversial beacon, had to be doused and moved to a van a couple times due to French protestors over the weekend...and it took an army of about 3000 security people using clubs and painful restraint holds on people to get the runners through...nice.

Didja know the first torch rally propaganda moment of our modern era was launched by an obscure German dude named Adolf Hitler for his 1936 games?

He was way ahead of the times, had a good PR staff, and if I remember correctly, had something to do in the field of human rights as well...

We should all look him up on Wikipedia... I bet they'd fill in the missing pieces...

Anyhow...

I doubt China will stop killing monks and harvesting the organs of prisoners & Falun Gong members just because we blocked a few joggers in town...

Hmm... maybe we should stop buying all their crap... nahhh! We like crap!

More on the torch below in a brief spot from a Minneapolis TV station...

Hey I love running & fire as much as the next grill happy American, but it all sounds a bit crazy to me...

from the soundtrack to the 1984 film "Night of the Living Dead" (also now available on the collection Don't Slander me)

Wonderous , Ponderous & Thunderous

Life working & jerking around in a big city just keeps me busy...

And I'll be too busy to check out the flag wavers on the inane torch rally protest thang...

I did see the torch go by a few years ago... I suppose it was for the 1996 Games...

Fairly uneventful at that time as i recall... I was walking by civic center on my way to work or something, suddenly a motorcade arrived and a real thin crowd of lookee loos gathered and watched some guy jog by carrying a flame... not that big of a deal really.

I remember the sponsoring Coca Cola truck handing out free sodas much more clearly...

nuff said...

In honor of the fact that I'm knee deep in nothing at the moment, and slipping ever further into nonesense, without time to analyze it ... let's cut to the sonic chase...

I dredged up a few choice items for y'all this past weekend from my vast unwieldy archives...

I do believe I am the first to offer a couple of these tracks for human consumption via the internet...

The first gem is from a guy who kinda helped give four lads from liverpool a break... they actually opened up for him on a british tour back in the wee 60s...

Well actually he was the lowly harmonica man, in the band with star Bruce Channel who had a huge hit going with Hey Baby circa 1962.

In fact, it was on that tour, that a young John Lennon was advised on his harmonica technique by this young Texan, and this supposedly resulted in what you hear on "Love Me Do"...

That fella is Mr. Delbert McClinton,

Onward and off we go... and we find Mr. McClinton hanging in the music biz throughout the years, earning his chops, doing dual duty in the Dallas / Fort Worth honky tonk & blues circuit.

Later as Delbert & Dean in the 70's, and eventually he scores a solo contract, and a major solo chart topper in 1980 under the title, "Giving It Up For Your Love"...

March onward another few decades and he's part of the Texas Blues revival scene, an Americana icon of sorts... and still at it...

His recent release "Cost of Living" on New West won a Grammy for Contemporary Blues Album, his third...

But with record sales a smaller percentage of artist income these days, one has to keep the bills paid...

And you can bet Delbert does...

I just discovered at Delbert.com that his latest enterprising venture is taking boatloads of people out on sentimental yet rawkin journeys at sea...

He's working on a DVD documentary about this process, and of course lotsa clips of great musicians dusting up a storm at sea including friends like Marcia Ball & Tommy Castro ...

Here's a rare demo version, a bit different than the snazzier one you heard on the 1980 LP ...

There are no drums or other instruments other than piano. This is just Delbert backed with piano played by John Barlow Jarvis, a version that was submitted as a publisher's demo to Morris Music before the album was recorded.

Here's a few more McClinton moments to enlighten the unenlightenedThis song is from his first record for New West, and I do believe this well traveled man copped a Grammy for the lil' indie thang that year as well. Here's from 2002's "Nothing Personal"

and just because it's Wednesday... the official hump day... I wanna post one more classic american tune...

Most of the folks I know seem to think it has something to do with Elvis Costello...

Which is only partly true, as Costello covered this on the 2006 River in Reverse album which was recorded along with Allen Toussaint.

This was indeed a tune written by Allen Toussaint, but way back in the very late 50's I believe... and it was released on Ace Records originally as single by Chuck Carbo circa 1961.

This version here is Jimmy Clanton and the Heartbeats having a go at it, and it ain't have bad either...I don't believe it was ever put out until the mid 80's, and that was on a fairly rare, now out of print collection of old New Orleans Rock n Roll sides...

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Excuse the brevity but I have to get out the door here as the dawn comes...

I'm losing sleep due to climate change, or so it would seem...

Today is the start of a two day Climate Change shindig I'm involved with. Beginning at 8 am there's a group of esteemed panelists & professors from all over who'll be laying out strategies for emissions reductions, from legal, scientific & political perspectives.

Folks speaking and attending run the gamut of NGO's and Institutions, University of London, Earth Institute, World Bank, Pew Center and even our marquee name brand Mayor whose pet project is photo ops where he is pictured being the "eco dude".

I'm just the roadie, videographer and wacky web monkey who'll be helping out with seemingly stupid tasks like changing the batteries in the wireless mics, and getting the internet stream up so people can tune in on potentially a global level.

Live Audio Webcast of the "Surviving Climate Change" Conferencehttp://peace.str3am.com:6360/listen.plsUse this link if you would like to listen to the conference through winamp, real audio or other software. The audio streams live. Thursday it will begin at 8:45am PST and end at 5:30 pm PST. On Friday it will begin at 9:00am PST and end 3:00pm PST.

The Keynote Speakers at the conference include:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom

Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board

All this while half a world away, the real players are in attendance at the current round of United Nations climate change talks with reps from 163 nations that got underway on Monday in Bangkok. There so-called "Third World" African Nations are demanding a portion of 1st World GDP be set aside for them to combat the effects of climate change.

So instead of being out til 2:30 like last night watching Evolution Control Committee and Fluff Girl rock a St.Stupid's Day after party...

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